The digital experience your customers expect

“Everyone has a smartphone and a bank account – we’re the most banked country in the world. COVID accelerated the acceptance of digital communication and payments, particularly in older generations. At the same time, we’ve witnessed in-person interactions migrate to predominantly digital experiences,” says CommBank’s Sam Bowen, Managing Director, Corporate and Institutional Transaction Banking.

When we talk about people who are digitally focused, we use the term “Digital Citizen”. Who is a Digital Citizen? Pretty much everyone. In fact, not being digitally connected is an exception, with more than 95% of Australians using a mobile phone daily to access the internet according to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) 2022-23 report. Further research found that landline use declined to just 18% in 2023 as our use of apps for messaging continues to rise.

“Both businesses and governments need to focus on digital service delivery that solves problems for this dominant digital audience,” says Bowen. “If you’re providing services of any description – B2B or B2C – everyone is preferring the digital alternative. People are asking for it. This includes contactless ordering and delivery tracking, real-time and on-demand shopping, straight through service delivery, and access wherever they are. “While practically every business has a digital presence, our advice is that digital transformation of your business is now delivering market share, the best, put the customer at the centre of the journey, solve real problems and build trust.”

Beyond shopping, to service delivery

Being more digitally adept is not the only way your customers have changed. Social media and phone cameras have armed almost everyone with the tools to shine a light on poor customer experiences, failures of human rights, diversity, equality, as well as climate. People are organising and being given voice through digital platforms.

The sharpened focus on Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) concerns, coupled with increased transparency via social media, is driving deep business change, everything from supply chain management to packaging decisions to employee training. Paper and physical document delays are being replaced by smart online forms & payments, paperless ticketing & payment, drivers licences in secure identity apps, all fueling increasing expectations for convenience, near real-time transparency and service delivery.

How to start your digital transformation 

Not sure if your business is digital enough? Here’s a few simple ways to check: how large a role do paper forms or spreadsheets play in your finance operations? What’s the average time from application or purchase order to service delivery? How much effort and time goes in to producing management reports? If processing paper forms or refreshing spreadsheets are a key part of your finance team efforts, service delivery and reporting is slower than it could be and there are many opportunities to digitise the finance and customer journey.

Completely renovating your existing systems is an expensive proposition. “While we might see the key solution as implementing a new state-of-the-art enterprise resource planning solution, it can be daunting how complex and expensive it is to overhaul your entire system,” says Bowen. “But there are alternatives that are lower cost, quicker to implement and still uplift customer experience and productivity.”

And a digital uplift doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning legacy processes. Manual, paper-based processes still have a role, as a backup in the event there are issues with digital systems.  Successful digital transformation often starts by identifying genuine customer problems – aim for quick wins – and scale out from there, building advocacy, confidence and capability.

For clients in the CBA Institutional Portfolio, we offer specific client workshops that can help provide solutions for any problem. These include Design Thinking Workshops, which bring your organisation’s employees through a well-defined process, to develop a problem statement and find solutions. The most successful workshops engage people at every level of your organisation, verify the genuine problem and develop solutions collaboratively that solve the issue.

Competition driving digital change

The businesses that are doing digital well are seeing positive results. “Digital uplift increases customer satisfaction and builds trust – if it’s done well and genuinely solves a problem,” says Bowen. “Business transformation is complex, even before considering Artificial Intelligence (AI), but increasingly necessary to meet customer, internal and regulatory expectations and time frames.”

Digital capability is now critical for many industries, that know poor or insecure customer experiences hurt their brand and, ultimately, market share. “Even our public institutions, are keenly aware that the proportion of Australian citizens who are not digital is continuing to narrow – while many don’t know another way,” Bowen notes.

Using your team’s experience to ease the transition

Like your customers, your workforce is adapting. Providing employees with leadership, clear vision and tools they can use, are a key ingredient for successful digital transformation. Rather than a risk to or resistant to change, long-standing team members are essential to share their understanding of your business processes and customers, to smooth the transition to digital service delivery.

Quick wins will build advocacy and improve employee satisfaction, releasing them to better use their knowledge and access opportunities for development. “Change management should include micro courses that help lift skills across the business, giving existing staff crucial knowledge and skills to excel in the digital age while taking advantage of their experience. It’s a win all around.” says Bowen.

“It’s not just about being digital,” says Bowen. “It’s about taking advantage of the benefits of a digital business, from increased customer satisfaction, better use of our people’s skills, to driving down costs. “There is real value to being a digital business, built around people, addressing the big challenges facing business” he adds. 

CommBank has the digital credentials and experience as we innovate to support our clients. If you’re a CommBank customer, Australia’s most recognised digital bank is already putting your data to work for you. Either through smart alerts in the CommBank app, Business Insights in Daily IQ or bespoke analytics via CommBank iQ, our joint venture with leading analytics company Quantium, we’re bringing your digital citizens to you.